Rev. A.J. Ogden

My grammar school days were a combination of joys and sorrows, ups and downs, trials and triumphs, good days and bad, laced with plenty of hard farm work at home. The Great Depression was in full sway until World War II and defense work came.

While in the fourth grade, we had some mischievous kids in the class to say the least, and I was also a part of the problem, I’m sure. Weasel, my close friend, always looked for a way to have fun, sometimes to the extreme. We all knew one day it was none other than Weasel who carried a little snake and put it in the teacher’s little chalk drawer. She would come in and open that drawer to get a piece of chalk as usual.

Now you have to know Miss Lotta to know how desperately she feared snakes or anything that resembled a snake. Upon pulling out that desk drawer that day, the snake instantly crawled up her arm and around her neck. She panicked and leaned back in the chair which turned over backward, as she hit the floor. Upon going over backward her feet pushed against the desk which turned over two bouquets of flowers. The vases broke and water and glass, papers and report cards, all littered the floor.

All the kids started screaming, turning over their desks, and getting a few cuts and bruises. Fear and panic prevailed as never before, as the frightened snake ran from one side to the other. Miss Lotta finally saw the little snake with a crushed head lying dead in all the wreckage.

Miss Lotta stood up with her torn dress and bleeding hand and pronounced judgment on whoever brought the snake to school. Weasel (my friend?) quickly said, “A.J. Ogden brought him.” All the class for some reason said, “Amen”. My punishment was having three whippings from Miss Lotta and one from mother. Finally a few weeks later Weasel stood before the class and told Miss Lotta he had been the guilty one, and she dealt accordingly. Life is not always fair, but sin will always find you out. In later years Weasel and I have laughed about that incident.